Boralex Inc.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the telephone conference on the financial results of the third quarter of 2024 for Boralex. Please note that all lines are in listening mode only. At the end of the presentation, there will be a question and answer period during which financial analysts, shareholders and investors will be invited to ask their questions by pressing star 1 and 1 on their phones. Please also note that this conference is recorded. Pour les participants à la webdiffusion, vous pouvez également poser des questions au cours de cette conférence, mais celles-ci obtiendront réponse par courriel après l'appel. Enfin, les représentants des médias qui ont des questions sont invités à contacter directement Camille Laventure, conseillère principale affaires publiques et communications externes, aux coordonnées indiquées à la fin du communiqué trimestriel. J'aimerais maintenant passer la parole à Stéphane Milot, vice-président relations avec les investisseurs de Boralex. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Boralex third quarter of 2024 Financial Results Conference call. Please note that all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session in which financial analysts, shareholders, and investors will be invited to ask their questions by pressing star 1 and 1 on their telephone. Please also note that the conference is being recorded. For webcast participants, we can also ask questions during the conference, but they will be answered by email after the call. Finally, media representatives are invited to contact Camille Aventure, Senior Advisor, Public Affairs and External Communications. Her contact information is provided at the end of the quarterly press release. I would now like to turn the conference over to Stephan Milot, Vice President, Investor Relations for Boralex. Please go ahead.

All right, thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. So, welcome to Baralek's third quarter resolve conference call. So, joining me today on the call, Patrick Dacoste, our president and chief executive officer, Bruno Guilmette, our executive vice president and chief financial officer, and other members of our management and finance teams. So, Mr. Dacoste will begin with comments about market conditions and the highlights of the quarter. Afterwards, Mr. Guilmette will carry on with financial highlights, and then we will be available to answer your questions. As you know during this call, we will discuss historical as well as forward-looking information. When talking about the future, there are a variety of risk factors that have been listed in our different filings with securities regulators, which can materially change our estimated results. So these documents are all available for consultation at cdarplus.ca. In our webcast presentation document, the disclosed results are presented both on a consolidated basis and on a combined basis. When talking about the results, we generally refer to combined numbers, and when referring to cash flow and balance sheet, we generally refer to consolidated numbers. So please note that combined is a non-GAAP financial measure and does not have a standardized meaning under IFRS. So accordingly, combined may not be comparable to similarly named measures used by other companies. For more details, see the non-IFRS and other financial measures sections in the MD&A. So the press release, the MD&A, the consolidated financial statements, and a copy of today's presentation are all posted on the Barilex website at barilex.com under the investor section. If you wish to receive a copy of these documents, so please contact me. Mr. Dacaste will now start his comment, Patrick, you can go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you, Stéphane, and good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure for me to present our results and accomplishments. During this quarter, The third quarter of 2024, we actively pursued our development and diversification activities in a period affected by adverse weather conditions in Canada and France, which impacted our results. On a year-to-year basis, we observe an improvement in all our financial metrics. We have increased our EBITDA by 7%, our operating income by 15%, and our net earnings by 32% compared to the first nine months of 2023. During the quarter, we continue to make good progress on the construction of our APWIT project in Quebec and our Lime Cane project in Scotland. We are very happy with what our teams have achieved on both sides. These two projects should be commissioned as planned by the end of the year. We have also started the construction of our two storage projects, Eggersville and Tilbury in Ontario. Those projects are anticipated to be commissioned by the end of 2025. Additionally, Our Déné Sud wind project and Oxford storage project are advancing as planned with commissioning scheduled in 2026. Lastly, in North America, we're currently awaiting for the final results of the NYSERDA request for proposals in the New York State, which are expected to be announced soon. In Europe, We are very pleased to announce the acquisition of Salaki Project, a 50 megawatt advanced stage wind project in Scotland. This transaction adds another exciting project to our strong onshore wind portfolio in Scotland and represents a key step toward achieving our goal of strengthening our presence in the strong growth potential market of the United Kingdom. This quarter, we also achieved significant milestones in our customer strategic direction by signing two long-term renewable energy purchase agreements in France with leading industrials companies Nestlé and SyngoBeth. This achievement demonstrates the expertise of the creativity and the creativity of our marketing team to support new clients in their energy transition through tailored solutions. It also shows the growing competitiveness and appeal of renewable energy even for industrial players. In terms of market conditions, demand for renewable energy in our markets continues to be strong fostering a favorable environment for both the operation and the development of our activities. In the United States, we understand that the implications of the elections on the renewable energy sector are a key area of focus. we will continue to develop our pipeline and produce cost-competitive renewable energy in markets driven by increasing demand in clean power and strong support at state level. In Europe, the Labour Party's election in the UK is very promising with several encouraging measures for renewable energy, such as lifting the ban on onshore wind power in England. The government has also announced the creation of the state-owned entity Great British Energy to drive the deployment of clean energy and boost energy independence. I will now rapidly cover the main variances in our portfolio of projects and growth paths. The change in the pipeline was mainly due to the addition of wind, solar and storage projects in Europe and North America in the early stage. The withdrawal of non-strategic solar projects in Scotland. Transition of wind and solar projects through the pipeline to the mid and advanced stages in Europe. In total, our pipeline of early, mid, and advanced stages projects now consists of projects totaling 6.4 gigawatts of wind, solar, and storage projects. In the second quarter, the growth path represents a capacity of 867 megawatts, up 16 megawatts compared to the previous quarter. This increase was mainly attributable to the progression of solar projects in Europe to the secure stage. Our total pipeline of projects in development, secured and under construction now stands at 7.2 gigawatts. Regarding the progress made in our growth and diversification strategies, I already covered the key highlights in the introduction. On the optimization direction, we were pleased to announce the closing of a $95 million financing for the Temiscouata II wind farm in Quebec. This completes my part. I will now let Bruno cover the financial portion in more detail, and we'll be back later for the question period. Bruno?

Thank you, Patrick. Good morning, everyone. I will start with the financial highlights of the quarter. Total combined production was down 1% compared to the same quarter last year and 11% lower than expected due to unfavorable weather conditions and the increase in power curtailments in France. As a result, our combined EBITDA amounted to $109 million down $4 million and the FFO amounted to $16 million down $7 million compared to the third quarter of 2023. I will now review the progress made in light of our 2025 corporate objectives. Our balance sheet remains quite strong with $608 million in available cash resources and out-raised financing. In addition, $51 million are accounted for in trade and other receivables representing Approximately 85% of the ITC to be received based on the qualifying property acquired for the APRIT project under construction in Quebec. Total debt remains stable in the third quarter of 2024, with project debt accounting for 90% of the total. The reinvestment ratio is consistent with our target at 66%. Finally, regarding our corporate objectives, we have made significant progress on our CSR strategy and are proud to announce that Parallax is among the first renewable energy producers to have its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets validated by the SBTI science-based targets initiative. This certification is a great achievement and demonstrates that our CSR strategy creates value through effective management and the differentiation we bring to the renewable energy sector. I will now provide more detailed information on our financial results for the third quarter, starting with production. In North America, total combined production for the quarter was in line with the same quarter last year, but 10% lower than anticipated. Production from the wind assets was 5% higher compared to the same quarter last year, but 10% lower than anticipated due to weak resources conditions in Canada. Production for the hydro sector was 20% lower than last year and 5% lower than anticipated due to unfavorable weather conditions in Canada and a comparison with a strong 2023 third quarter. Production from solar assets was 2% higher than the same quarter last year, but 15% lower than anticipated, mainly due to curtailment requests in California. In Europe, total production was 3% lower compared to the same quarter last year and 12% lower than anticipated, attributable to unfavorable weather conditions and the increase in curtailments in France. As mentioned at the beginning of my presentation, the decrease in production affected our revenues EBITDA and EFFO with the contribution for new sites and our selling strategy optimization partially offsetting the decrease. Our financial positions remain very solid with a net debt to total market capital ratio of 43%. In conclusion, we remain focused on the discipline execution of our strategic plan We have, as mentioned by Patrick, we have delivered strong results year-to-date, significant increases in key metrics such as operating income EBITDA and net earnings so far this year compared to last year. The outlook for the end of the year is quite promising with the commissioning of Appriate in Quebec and LimeKin in Scotland. We are also actively working on the financings of our Agersville and Tilbury battery projects in Ontario. We continue to develop our activities with discipline in attractive markets driven by increasing demand for renewable energy and remain very positive for Borrellec's future and our ability to generate the expected return on our investments. Thank you for your attention. We are now ready to take your questions.

Thank you. As a reminder to ask your questions on the phone line, please press star 1 and 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. Once again, please press star 1 and 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please type them in the question box and click submit. Thank you. We are now going to proceed with our first question. The questions come from the line of Nelson Ning from RBC Capital Markets. Please ask your question.

Okay, thanks and good morning everyone. My first question relates to France and I have a multi-part question. So can you just talk about your corporate PPA strategy for new projects under development. I was just wondering whether the preference is to participate in the government RFPs or sign PPAs. And also, I presume the corporate PPAs have a higher power price, given the lower offtake credits. And then just finally, if you are unsuccessful, if a project's unsuccessful and a government bid Is it like, can you just go and try to get a corporate PPA to get that project developed?

Yeah, good morning, Nelson. Indeed, the strategy on corporate PPA for us is to target, say, specific clients with specific needs. And each client we have in France there is specific need and we understand that and we provide value. So the consequences, generally speaking, it's a better return for us when we have this type of opportunity because we are providing a specific service to a client. There is always for the project a safety net of a government RFP and we just received yesterday the confirmation that we won another 21, it's not in the document because it was coming early yesterday, a 21 megawatt project in france in the last rfp from from the commission regulation energy the average price on this is almost 88 euro megawatt hours so so you see it exactly like you in your question you were asking there is different options and we are going to the best option for boralex and on the on the sixth project that are under construction in france five are with corporate ppa and i think it's a it's an interesting trend of the market there okay that's pretty interesting so are those corporate ppas in that 15 to 20 year term Yeah, it depends. Nestlé is 15 years and Saint-Gobain is 20 years. All the others like Auchan, Métro, Ware, 20 years contract. We backed on them a project finance, which is also an important criteria. The banks who are financing the project and were used for the last 20 years to just finance EDF PPA-backed financing are now going through this corporate PPA. So this is also an important move of the financing market in France.

Just one last one on that. So obviously, corporate PPAs have a lower credit rating. So from a financing perspective, would you expect like a wider margin and potentially a shorter?

Yeah, it's the case. It's the case. But globally, what we'll look is we have a better return for Boralex. And we obviously we don't go for bad counterparties. We all have blue chip companies and who are, in good situation in long-term companies. So I think, yeah, the cost is a little bit higher, but at the end, the return is significantly better for us. Otherwise, we don't go for this project if we can't go for an EDF contract. Got it.

Okay. And then I have a few questions on the Ontario battery project. So Hagersville and Tilbury. So I think it looks like the total cost of those two projects is about $770 million. Can you talk about how those costs have or how battery costs have trended and do you expect to see any cost savings when you start your Oxford battery project potentially next year?

Yeah, I don't have the exact figure before me for the cost of the battery of Akersville and Silvery, but to the second point, yes, it's not completely finalized and public, but the Oxford battery costs are lower than the Agersville and Tilbury battery cost at the time when we ordered the battery. So that's going in the south and in the right side for us.

Okay. And then... I'm sorry, Nelson, just a point on that. Well, because, yeah, as you mentioned, those projects are now in the growth path as being under construction. You can see the The investment, I guess that's what you're referring to. So the amount is in fact slightly lower than what we were expecting originally. And it's a mix of fuel elements like the battery cost for sure, but also BOP and a few savings here and there. But so generally speaking, better conditions than when we initially undertook this project.

Okay. And then can you just talk about how the partnership with the First Nations work? Is it like a 50-50 split? And then can you also talk about the funding plan and also the run rate EBITDA from the first two battery projects?

Do you want to talk about Bruno DEF funding for Agersville and

Yeah, so the the funding, the financing is for the two battery projects, Agersville and Tilbury. We expect good news before the before the end of the year. So we're actively working as I mentioned on those financings and it looks it looks on track for for us to finish and then close on that. This this year.

on run rate EBITDA. Run rate EBITDA for those two specific sites, do you mean? Is that your question?

Correct. Relative to the 770 CapEx. I was wondering what the EBITDA would be, roughly.

Yeah, it's part of our disclosure in the MDNA. We invite you to look at this, or we could talk about it after the call if you want a more precise number.

Sure, I'll have a look. And then just finally on the First Nations Partnership, is it a 50-50 partnership or is there a different arrangement?

Yeah, it's both 50-50 partnership. Ayersville is with the Six Nations of the Grand River, so we already did a partnership with them in 2016 or even before for the development of Niagara. And Tilbury is with the old Poole Island. It's a 50-50, and it was their first partnership, but it was going very well, the negotiation, and we're very good partners, so very long-term partner on Ingersville, and new partner, but very successful on the whole Poole Island and Tilbury.

Great, thanks.

I'll leave it there. Thank you.

We are now going to proceed with our next question. The questions come from the line of Sean Stewart from TD Cowen. Please ask your question.

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. A question on the prospective pipeline in Quebec. I'm wondering if you can give any updated thoughts on Hydro-Quebec's plans, which are clearly aggressive, and visibility on future partnership opportunities going forward and how that feeds into your longer-term development aspirations.

Yeah, good morning, Sean. Indeed, the Hydro-Québec plan is very aggressive because it's doubling the size of Hydro-Québec from today to 2050. with lots of wind farms and renewable developments. So we are clearly chasing this. It's under clarification, I would say, presently by the government and Hydro-Québec, but definitely the government, Hydro-Québec, and the private sector would be part of this. The First Nations would be part of this. And I have reconfirmation directly from Hydro-Québec to say that we have skin in the game in terms of equity in the project. And the example that they were taking already in May and they are continuing to take is the DENESH project, which is the three-phase of 400 megawatts with us, where we own one-third of Energir owns one third and Hydro-Québec owns the other third. So I think that's a successful partnership and this project is going well. So I presume they will build on this type of project for the future. What came in the press is that Hydro-Québec is working as they were saying. to try to find agreement with the First Nations and municipality to advance larger project. I guess that they will also continue to do the classical track of, I don't know if it would be annual or every two years tenders RFP for smaller project, but no, it's interesting because small project are

350 megawatt project it's still small project in Quebec in the new language so that's also a good signal that there is plenty of opportunities for us thanks for that detail and I also appreciate your comments with respect to ongoing growth opportunities in the US but any updated thoughts Patrick big picture on risk adjusted returns the best markets for longer-term opportunities? I think last quarter you were indicating the UK feels like a particularly compelling market. Has the relative pecking order shifted at all over the last three months in terms of your preferred focus for prospective growth?

Yeah, I'm not changing my point. I think we have lots of opportunities uh in quebec and ontario and the uk that's the three places where for the near future we have lots of opportunity as you know we bid 590 megawatts in new york last rfp we are expecting the final result anytime soon. I don't know when. And this is also with good return also in these RFPs. So I think the point is today there is very good, say, 10 to 12 return achievable in the different markets. The point is to develop the right project, and that's exactly what we're doing in these different markets. So I don't see a big difference on the return expectations presently on our side.

Okay, that's great detail. That's all I have for now. Thanks very much. Thank you. Have a good day.

We are now going to proceed with our next question. The questions come from Jessica Hoyle from Scotiabank. Please ask your question.

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. So, to start, diversification of your assets was mentioned as a focus just given some weak renewable resources this year. Just high level, how are you thinking about maintaining a diverse portfolio given your current pipeline of opportunities?

Yeah, good morning, Jessica. I think what is important is we have interesting development more than expected four years ago in Quebec. uh in uh in in wind so this is this is not going into diversifying our portfolio but on the other side we have significant project in and and the capital deployments in ontario in battery storage which was completely different a business model with completely different contract duration and technology So we bid in New York because we continue to work on the solar side. So I think the way to optimize diversification is to optimize our sell-down strategy. And if I come back four years ago, we were probably a little bit too much exposed to France in terms of diversification. It's a very good market. But in terms of diversification, this was a big part of Goralex, and we sold down 30% at a very attractive price. So it's a way also to, at the end, have a net cash flow which is more diversified. So we are looking forward. We will also use this. this way to optimize our diversification of cash flow and definitely if we can do significant sizeable project in Quebec we will continue to do them and have partners at the right time on this project to not to be overexposed to somewhere and that's also the reason why we are developing in in the UK which is a completely different market in terms of resource regulation and

I may add to your point, Patrick. Also this quarter, we saw a positive impact from the U.S. acquisition we did in wind, where in a quarter where we had tough conditions in Canada and France, we got very good results in the U.S. So it's also another market where we're benefiting from diversification. Yeah.

Appreciate the color. And then just moving over to storage. So you started construction on the Ontario storage projects and it looks like you've added to the early stage storage pipeline in the quarter. So just staying on this theme, could we see more resources invested to bolster as well as further advance your storage pipeline?

Not sure I I I get the question.

Yeah, so I'm just I'm just like looking for some color on the addition to the storage pipeline. Could you? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, sorry, sorry. Yeah, we are essentially in Ontario. What is coming? Short term is the three project to the 200 construction then Oxford probably next year and then we have. We are developing projects for the LT2. And LT2, the next RFP, there would be production, generation, energy, and there would certainly be capacity. And so storage would be a part of it, or hybrid site. So we are preparing ourselves to this. The answer is yes.

Sorry, again, it's Stéphane. Just wanted to add a point on that, Jessica. As you know, storage for us makes sense where we have long-term contracts, like it is the case in Ontario. So we have a special situation in Ontario where our intention is, as Patrick mentioned, is really to continue to develop this technology in this market. Not necessarily the case in other markets where the storage is more kind of a, but or like a merchant market. So this is less interesting for us at this point.

Thank you.

We are now going to proceed with our next question. The questions come from the line of Benjamin Same from BMO. Please ask your question.

Hi, thanks. Good morning. A couple more questions on Ontario storage projects. confirm the capex cost?

Is that all fixed at this point?

Yeah, it's what you see, what we've presented in our growth path and the NDNA is the capex figure that we have right now as we speak. So this, as you know, this number is updated every quarter. So we, but There's no reason to believe that there would be a significant change there. Okay. It's quite easy. Storage, you put slabs and you put the batteries on top.

Oh, I got you. So your whole point is you've effectively locked in the battery price, so your residual exposure on Any cost overruns or underruns are quite contained. And just to that point, then, it sounds like even though this is probably, I think, your largest project you've ever built in your history, you're feeling pretty good about execution, risk and timing, and how you're moving forward?

Yeah, we're working with... We have decided to work with Tesla, who is... I think that was part of our decision last year to go with them because they have been selected by Northland to do Oneida. So if there is any learning curve for them in Ontario specifically, on top of all their knowledge of the US, Australia and somewhere else, they will do it with Oneida. And my understanding is that it's going well. On the second part, on the balance of plant, We are working with Borea. Borea is a well-known company initially from Quebec, but who have developed lots of projects, wind, solar, in Canada and the U.S. So we are in good hands and we have a specific team. So I'm reasonably confident that the project is going well. So the team is doing well. So I'm not stressed specifically on this project.

Okay, that's good to hear. And my minor question or topic is on Scotland. And can you maybe talk high level how you think Scotland transpiring in the next few years in terms of where do you want the development pipeline to be? I'd expect a lot more capital to be deployed and ultimately what percent potentially this could be as part of your overall business.

Yeah, it's Scotland, but it's not just Scotland. It's also England now because, as I mentioned in the speech, the government lift the ban on onshore wind in England. And you know that the offshore wind is, generally speaking, delay in the UK. So the offshore wind solution is delayed. In Clay Point C, the large nuclear plant is also delayed and they're just starting to for the next size of well, sea plans, the engineering, and they don't know where they will go exactly. So I think there is a great opportunity for onshore wind and solar in the UK globally speaking. As part of Voralex pipeline, we have a team of roughly 20 people today there. The acquisition of Salaki is an interesting one because it's a German developer, WKN, who wanted to exit the UK market. to concentrate their resource as a German developer in Germany and Poland. And so they say, okay, we sell this project. It's a very nice project, fully permitted. So we will optimize this. So it's very similar to what we did in France say 15 years ago and consolidate different organic development mid-stage development and maybe one day operational assets to build an interesting platform, consistent platform in the UK. So I think that's exactly the long-term vision that I have.

Okay, perfect. Thank you. Thank you.

As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1 and 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please cite them in the question box and click submit. We are now going to proceed with our next question. The questions come from the line of Melissa Dean from the National Bank Financial. Please ask your question.

Hi, everyone. Just filling in for Rupert here. So for your 2025 capacity goal of 4.4 gigawatts, Do you guys still expect to meet this target? And if so, what are your plans on getting there? Is it through a number of small acquisitions, large acquisitions? Any detail there would be great.

Yeah. Sorry, Bruno.

Go ahead. On the targets for 2025, we're still confident that we can meet them. Just a reminder that These targets included some M&A activities, some acquisitions, and that's why I think we've mentioned a few times that we've been less active voluntarily, less active on the M&A front because prices were too high. Now the situation is better from an M&A acquisition perspective in terms of pricing and valuations. So we're active looking at opportunities, mainly in the U.S. and the U.K. markets for M&A. And specifically to your question, it could be a combination of larger deals and some acquisitions like the Senate key that we just talked about that Patrick mentioned in the U.K. So that's really what in terms of guidelines – we're maintaining our confidence on that.

Great, thank you. And Burlux has a healthy liquidity already, but if you are to go through growth through M&A, what levers could you look at to support your growth, and what would you say is the most attractive for you guys that refinancing fell down? Anything there would be great.

Yeah, so in terms of financing, I'll start by saying right now we're in a very good position. We expect likely our utilization of our credit corporate line to be minimal in the fourth quarter. As I mentioned, expecting some significant project financing on the upcoming large construction projects. So things are looking good on the financing of projects front. competitive market, competitive bids from our lenders, and strong interest. So looking good on the project financing side, still an important portion of our financing strategy. In terms of equity needs, given what we have right now, not taking into account M&A, for example, we're we still have good visibility for the next 12 to 18 months. So that's not a big concern, but I think your point also goes to M&A. And depending on the size of M&A, it could be a combination. We're looking at different possibilities, different front. I think you all know that we're very aligned with shareholders in terms of creating value, in terms of growth of AFFO per share. So we issue equity only when we need to, to keep, if it's a larger acquisition, then that or an asset sell down. But we're working on different fronts and depending on what's most value creation for shareholders, then we'd go for that if we need to finance a large acquisition.

And could you just remind us of your leverage ratio threshold that you have?

Well, our leverage ratio right now, I mean, if we look at, if you look at our generally, sorry, I'm running out of voice here. In terms of leverage ratio, what I say is usually total leverage seven, seven and a half times EBITDA is a good level in terms of being comfortable. That's the total. Right now, I'd say we're under levered compared to that lever. So we have other opportunities to lever either at the corporate level or at the project financing level.

Great. Thank you. I'll leave it there.

And we have, I think we mentioned, we have more than $600 million of available cash and financing facilities available.

We are now going to proceed with our next question. The questions come from the line of Mark Jarvie from CIBC. Please ask a question.

Thanks, Gloria. Bruno, following up on acquisitions, particularly on the U.S. front with the U.S. election outcome, maybe some uncertainty on tweaks to the IRA or guidance around tax credits and whatnot. Does that slow down any activity in that market? Does it give you some pause? How are you viewing that election outcome in terms of any appetite to do deals in the U.S.? ?

Well, I'll start and maybe Patrick can add some, because there's two aspects to your question. M&A and M&A, if we're looking at, I mean, existing assets, it potentially is less of a concern for a few years. It may come if we're looking at repowering options. So I'd say depending on the types of assets that we acquire. We still believe strongly in the U.S. market, election or not. If you recall, Trump was there in December 2020, and he's the one who extended the ITCs and the PTCs at that time. So we're still confident in the U.S. market, generally speaking. On the development front, maybe I'll let Patrick answer that part.

Yeah, what I think on the US side is that we need to probably differentiate the noise from the signal. The signal is that there is lots of need, the need of electricity are very important and renewable are, we're able to develop and deploy projects. So I think we need to obviously take care of the situation and if there is any change, but I don't think the – I don't expect that the IRA would be completely changed. Remind that at the end of this first term, Trump extended the ITC and the PTC mechanism, and that was driven by the development of renewable in red states. So that's a fact. And we will see – I think there is also – Along with the U.S. opportunity in development and M&A, potential M&A, we're also looking to M&A within the U.K., like we did with Salaki. Like I mentioned, we can also try to buy a project under development and or a site in operation, like we did in France in the past. So I think we have different opportunities on this side, too.

Just to follow up on the development projects, do you guys have equipment within Safe Harbor to get the full credits on projects that you're pursuing?

No, what we have is we have work very closely with suppliers before we bid in New York. And we have been very prudent on this when we bid. So we will see when the result will come, how we trigger this commitment with suppliers and see how we can work. And the important point is the domestic content of the project. And we are, I think, on the safe side on this in our bid.

Okay. With the French tender results that just came out, there was a media article talking about how a number of German developers were winners and they were more active in this round. Is that surprising to you? What are you seeing in terms of competition and who's pursuing projects through the competitive tender? Does that tilt you more to the corporate PPA market going forward?

Yeah, I know a German developer in France since probably 23 years. And just for the story, when I was alone, there were already big companies from Germany like WSB, called WSB today, But plan back or energy contour or many German developer and at the end we are bigger than them in France So so just just remind this so we will continue to work. And yes, we have the option of obviously playing the the tender the RFP from EDF and and and and incorporate PPA and try to play on the different options that we have before us and in France the main point in France and we see that in the price of the tender is is not the price is not the competition is not on the price competition is to get a project fully permitted to be able to bid them and that's that's why we're competing indeed with German developers but since 20 years yeah last question for me is just on in the UK I believe they said they're going to enable repowering to bid in to the next auction

Do you think that changes the dynamic any way it sort of factors into how you're thinking about your positioning on your project pipeline as you look forward to bid in the next tender?

Yeah, it's a good question. There is two things I think which are two very important drivers for the future in the UK. The level of competition in the tender is will the onshore wind be in the same subsidy basket than the solar project like in the AR6? This is a big question mark because they did something specific for offshore wind at the last tender, which was not the case in the past. So they did something specific and the wind industry and the Scottish players are seeing if you want to have wind projects specifically in the north, and not just solar projects in England, you should do something specific because the price would be always, the nominal price would be always different. So that's one thing. The other question is what would be the budget You remember that when the government came in office, they changed the budget of the AR6 from a certain number to 50% more very quickly, but they didn't change anything else in the tender. Now we have time before the AR7 to see some changes, and I think this will be also something important. So yes, reporting will be there, and it could be a great opportunity. and the two other factors will have to be taken into account to evaluate the competitiveness of the next tender.

Understood. Okay. Thanks, Bruno. Thanks, Patrick. Thanks, Marc.

There are no further questions on this slide. I will now hand back to you. Thank you.

Well, thanks, everyone, for your attention and good questions. So, if you have any additional questions, please call me. Same number as usual, 514-213-1045. I'll make sure we quickly answer your questions. So our next conference call to announce fourth quarter results will be on Friday, February 28, 2025, at the same time, 11 a.m. So have a nice day, everyone. Bye. Thank you. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.